Keep Me Company
by Crucifix HiME
Summary: AU. Misery and longing does strange things to a person, especially if that person has lost the people they care for most. Gokudera should have known better by now, that he should have never gotten involved. OOC, character deaths...
1. 1:1

**Disclaimer:** Tsuna and co. are all Akira Amano's. Story idea mine, characters not!

* * *

 **Gokudera 1:1**

At the back of a rather sizeable manor there stood the faded form of a slouched and angry looking young man. He appeared as though in his early twenties with short cropped silver locks which swayed in the wind.

He stood in quiet sadness in front of a crypt. The generations of his family all but locked away inside and he could not even go to join them because his body _was not there_.

Because they never found his wretched corpse.

That's right, he was dead. And because his soul had been tied to the manor, he is unable to move on. But the immortalized male had long since accepted his fate and did not care anymore. The only thing that affected him were the sneaky fucktards in the Government that were in league with the Real Estate bosses who kept constantly trying to sell his home.

And it hadn't been their first attempt either.

They had wanted to wreck his family home in the beginning but he never stood for it. He retaliated. The anger and resentment he held for them had turned him partially into an evil spirit thus giving great power but that did not matter to him. He had not even realized what he had yet to truly become.

He now had the power to protect his home.

That was all that mattered to him.

When all attempts to destroy the manor had been foiled, they had given up and just decided to sell the place and let the buyers refurnish it. At first he'd been outraged but immediately simmered as a compromise, so long as they didn't do anything to damage his home, he would not mind letting them stay. They were all living beings, they died eventually.

He could wait, he had a long time coming to do just that.

 **TBC…**


	2. 1:2

**Gokudera 1:2**

In the years that Gokudera Hayato had been a ghost, there had been five residents that took to living in his home.

The first one had been an annoying big mouth who had irreparably injured his arms and needed somewhere to rest and recuperate. How the guy had managed to shatter the bones in both his arms was beyond Gokudera.

At first, he decided the guy was harmless.

That thought process changed rather quickly when he realized that the guy had enough pride to put a peacock to shame. He never let his loving sister help him and always did things himself. The stubborn mule broke a lot of Gokudera's mother's favorite things in the manor and kept breaking everything else. Even the _floor_.

At the three week mark, Gokudera had had enough and promptly used his telekinetic abilities to further harm the white haired male and his sister to chase him out. It had taken a total of five days and Gokudera almost felt bad for accidentally killing them to get him out of his home.

But this manor meant too much to him to let someone destroy it one way or another. He meant no harm but Sasagawa Ryohei was a menace just as bad as the wreckers. And despite being a ghost Gokudera tried to repair his home as best he could.

After the Sasagawas had moved out, they set the house up for sale.

.

.

.

It was three years later until the next resident came and was promptly chased out.

Honestly, this next guy had been just as bad as the lawn head. The guy seemed wealthy and took to fixing up and cleaning the place till it was sparkling. Gokudera had gawked for months at the sparkliness. Although he did find it strange that even though the place was fully maintained, it remained uninhabited for a long, _long_ while with no signs of the buyer.

The ghost got the feeling that his manor had been made into a vacation home for some rich dude.

Five months later and his speculations were proven true.

The guy was a handsome motherfucker, that much he could admit, but the male was clumsy as fuck…a total walking disaster.

How the man's servants put up with him was another mystery to the silver haired ghost.

As for how long Gokudera's patience lasted, was a miracle in itself, but instead of reacting badly and trying to bodily harm the sparkly male, he made use of his ghost status and began haunting him.

Gokudera had literally scared the blond away while Dino Cavallone screamed his lungs out running from the manor. The ghost had a pretty good laugh getting rid of that one.

.

.

.

It was five years later that the real estate agents managed to convince the general public that the house was indeed safe to live in and that there were in fact, _no ghosts_ , haunting the manor. Gokudera snorted with poorly concealed amusement.

However in a matter of months, Gokudera found himself watching over a next batch of residents. And by batch, he meant a _family_.

And a dysfunctional family at that.

They didn't ruin his house or anything but he hated some of the residents themselves. A cheating wife. A husband who was never home and the poor neglected daughter who was being abused by her junkie babysitter and whore of a mother.

Out of the entire family, the little girl was the one he felt the most compassion towards.

No one seemed to care about the girl's well-being and no one ever cared for her existence, and it was only because of that that Gokudera decided to experiment a little.

If he was a normal ghost he would have remained invisible, but because he was a partial evil spirit, he could make himself visible. Not that he knew that he was an evil spirit in the first place but the fact that he knew he could do it still remains.

He still had a lid on his sense of right and wrong. But sometimes Gokudera feared transitioning into something grotesque and evil. Like those bad ghosts his mother told him about in the bedtime stories when he went to sleep as a young child.

The first time he revealed himself the girl had been spooked but otherwise remained calm about his sudden arrival. She had thought he was a thief or some sort of criminal but the thought was quickly banished when she observed his transparent silhouette and his smooth voice that held just a dash of uncertainty as he talked to her in civility. Trying to get her to open up and smile.

She was surprised and more than a little grateful by his good will.

Her shyness did not take away from her loveliness but when she spoke…

He could tell. That she was so very scared and **lonely** …

He'd kept their nightly visits up for months, before the babysitter had gotten so high that he raped the poor little girl. Her echoing screams ignored by her parents. Gokudera had never seen an act quite like that before in his own home.

Adultery was one thing, rape was another.

He had been too shocked to help when she was being raped but when the sick fucker had left his home, he had been fair game. Gokudera slaughtered him cruelly for Nagi's lost innocence. Sadly, he shouldn't have left her in the house all alone, especially after experiencing something like that.

He _really_ shouldn't have…

When he returned to check on the girl, he bit back a horrified cry as he saw her body hanging in her room with a make-shift noose around her fragile, _**broken**_ neck.

He killed everyone else in the manor that very night.

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.

.

The house was left uninhabited for twelve years after the incident. Which was probably a good thing because Gokudera had still been mourning the loss of the young girl. A future where she could have been happy, all but ripped away from her. Just like him.

He blamed himself for not doing anything to help her sooner.

The house and now that poor girl's death tied him strongly to the structure. He couldn't even go outside anymore. And then there's the fact he was no longer a partial evil spirit. If someone had come to the manor he would have slaughtered them too.

His mental state had become too fragile.

But regardless of his now maximum output of power and his sudden ability to become physical to the touch. He was supposed to be nothing but a shroud, a shadow of what once was.

He was supposed to be **dead**.

.

.

.

One year later in March of 2003, a very unusual individual took up residence in his home. It wasn't because of a real estate agent either; he looked like a disturbed individual who had just wandered in and took unwanted residence in his home.

He instinctively did not like this person. Because this person felt fake, _fake_ , _**fake!**_

Gokudera only watched him at a distance for a time.

The man never slept in any of the bedrooms, just on a random couch. He never ate either, which the ghost found slightly puzzling in a rare moment of lucidity. It was only when the tall raven began sputtering out blood that the ghost realized why he was there at all, and what was wrong with him.

He was dying.

And he wanted to die alone.

Gokudera could not understand that sentiment. He no longer could.

Not able to control his bloodlust for the unwanted male any longer, Gokudera made to kill the man in his troubled sleep.

He slipped chilling fingers which felt like the shards of sharpened ice around the neck of the male. The man had woken immediately at the menacing touch and froze in shock at the sight of the form Gokudera had now morphed into. The ghost himself was unaware of his altered appearance.

When Gokudera couldn't control himself, he appears to others as a half rotting corpse with clawed, elongated fingers and empty sockets where mint green eyes would have been. A deep smoky miasma leaking from his ghostly pores.

But the man didn't flinch, didn't cry or beg for mercy like someone who _wanted_ to live, even if it meant suffering.

He just stared at Gokudera and with a smile, less fake than the ones he sported to fool himself and the world at large, he spoke in a trembling, scratchy voice as tears streamed down his face. "Finally here to kill me are you? I was waiting…"

With a voice he hadn't used in years since Nagi, he spat spitefully, "You came here to die."

"Of course…" he says weeping. "Please, set me free…"

Gokudera scowled murderously and begun squeezing the man's wind pipe with a vicious intensity.

He didn't understand.

The neck within his grasp snapped with a sickening _crack_.

.

.

.

Two years after his previous killing, the decaying corpse had remained in his home, stirring up Gokudera's anger every time he saw it. Normally he would have ignored it but he felt rather bitter and jealous. How dare that foolish idiot get the chance to pass on while Gokudera is still stuck in this _**wretched**_ place!

He immediately gasped and whimpered. He had not meant it.

He had not meant to think such a thing about his beloved mother's house.

He wept harder than ever as the thunder rolled above within the heavens. He had not realized that he had slowly regained part of his sanity.

.

.

.

The silver haired ghost frowned when he saw that someone had taken up residence in his home once again almost sixteen years since his awakening as an evil spirit.

This time, it was someone that reminded him sharply of Nagi.

His initial urge to end the life of the small individual all but vanishing at the chipped innocence within honeyed eyes. But he didn't hold his breath. He knew that the little brunet would do something to upset him sooner or later. Little did he know, it wasn't the brunet that was to upset him but the shadow of insanity that followed him along.

 **TBC…**


	3. 2:1

**Sawada 2:1**

A brunet sat quietly in the small office waiting for the deed to the house and land as well as the keys and some other miscellaneous items relevant for ownership of his new home.

He had bought the manor to live in, far from the city and deep into the countryside. Tsuna…needed to be away from people right now, he was too distraught to even socialize much less deal with his editor back home.

All his life, he had been sheltered; he had been lied to, put down and even betrayed by people he called _family_. But the worst thing that happened to him thus far, was helplessly watching the person he cared for most die and leave him behind on the worst possible day.

He had wanted **to die** that day.

But he knew he couldn't.

If he died and met _him_ in the afterlife so soon, he'd probably just get yelled at and that's only if he ends up where his friend was.

He held in a bitter chuckle and gazed out at the city through the clouded window from the office.

Tsuna blamed himself for the other's death, but he knew it wasn't just an accident. A freak accident he couldn't have prevented since it wasn't a murder.

And therein lies the cause of his suffering.

Because he knew damn well that he _could_ _have_ done something, and now, his constant is **gone**.

 **TBC…**


	4. 2:2

**Sawada 2:2**

 **.**

 **.**

 **.**

 **October 2006**

Gingerly approaching the front door with a nervous agent behind him, Sawada Tsunayoshi pushed the creaking door open… He made a mental note to oil it later. And as he turned his head, his eyebrows shot up in shock and mild dismay.

Dust!

Cobwebs!

Mold!

Tsuna felt his skin prickle and the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise. Turning to look at the estate agent at his back, he meekly questions, "How long did you say this house had remained empty like this?"

Shifting in discomfort she replies, "Roughly sixteen years. But are you really sure you want to stay here? There's a lot of bad history in this house." She ends with a worried squeak.

Tsuna blinks big brown eyes at her in confusion, "But didn't whatever happen, happened a long time ago?"

She fidgets, "That may be true but still… Sawada-san are sure you'll be-"

"I'll be fine Miura-san."

He says it so resolutely that she doesn't put up much of a fuss at him cutting her off.

"If you say so…" The woman mumbles. "But if you need anything at all, please call. I'll be _more than_ happy to help!" The brunet could only give her a small but genuine smile at her sincere declaration.

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After the agent leaves, Tsuna wanders around to get a feel of the place, all the while checking around to see all that needed his attention for repairs. The ground floor was in perfect condition minus the state it was in with all the dust. He heads to the living room where his things were placed and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt to dig through the boxes he had dragged in.

Unearthing the cleaning supplies, he dumps them into the kitchen before he wanders up the stairs to check up on the rooms and attic.

Of course the moment he reaches the attic and takes one peep into the room, he quickly closes the door with a choking gasp. It was worse than the levels below!

Coughing slightly the brunet wanders into a bedroom to peak from a window, he spies a sizeable garage near the back of the manor and he brightens considerably. He had been concerned whether or not his car would be left to the weather outside. He goes to check it out.

Not long after he finishes his exploration, he sees the movers arrive. Steeling himself for a meeting, he goes to meet them. Remembering the living room he had cleaned a bit, he tells them to put his furniture there. The movers are just about as stunned as the brunet when they enter through the front door.

One of the elderly movers throws Tsuna a sympathetic gaze and says, "It's going to be _murder_ cleaning up this place."

The brunet fights back a flinch when the man says 'murder' but he couldn't place the reason for his sudden fright. He gives the old man a convincing smile and says that he can handle the clean up on his own.

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It's just after one when he finishes up a take-out lunch, and with the right supplies in hand the vertically challenged brunet is ready to clean the house.

First he cleans the kitchen spotless, then goes to scrub the bathrooms and then dust and air the bedrooms out in that order. The house is fairly large so the brunet knows that the cleaning would take a while but Tsuna definitely wants to have a decent home cooked meal and a proper bath and a place to sleep, so the most important places get to be priority cleaned.

When Tsuna finally stumbles his way to clean up the bedrooms, his arms and legs are shaking like a new born cattle's. It has been ages since his last workout so the brunet is rather out of shape.

Not to mention, Tsuna had belatedly remembered that he was afraid of heights. And hadn't moved more than three steps off the ground, which meant straining his poor limbs to reach the places needing to be cleaned higher up the walls. If his best friend was still alive, he would have laughed himself out of oxygen before throwing the nearest bottle at him, if he had seen the position the brunet was in, out of pure amusement.

(Actually, he was fairly certain that he heard laughter at that moment, it just didn't sound like his best friend's.

Tsuna had been a tad too concerned that someone had broken in and was watching him to even think about being depressed. He checked all of the windows three times to make sure that no one had gotten into his new home before he was satisfied.)

Thankfully the bedrooms had a normal ceiling so his dusting and cobwebbing went a bit smoother than the one downstairs in the kitchen and bathrooms.

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.

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And so, by the time he finishes cleaning the brunet is shaking all over and was sorely tempted to pass out.

Sighing dejectedly, he recalls that if he'd taken to doing something strenuous without help his best friend would run him a bath and reluctantly make dinner as if held by gun point, and then proceed to dump his stuff in the brunet's room for an impromptu sleepover for all his trouble.

Pausing in his attempt at hauling his suitcase full of clothes and necessities, Tsuna brought a hand up to cover half his face, a wretched sob bubbling past his trembling lips.

Honestly, Tsuna hadn't had the time to properly grieve his best friend's death. He had still been in shock. So it was no surprise to Tsuna now that he was all alone with his wandering thoughts…

He would finally break down.

Collapsed upon the staircase, clutching the still dusty wooden banister he sobbed his poor heart out. He was so lost in his own despair that he had not felt the touch of frigid fingers lightly combing through his hair.

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Head numb, the woozy male planted himself face first onto bed of one of the guest bedrooms. He'd seen the master bedroom and promptly noted that it was too large for him. Tsuna had spent most of his life very sheltered and boxed in that he couldn't settle down in a place that was wide and open. It made him feel vulnerable in all the worst ways.

Tsuna blamed that on his father. Speaking of, he should be expecting a call right about…

 **Riiiinnng!**

Now.

 _Speak of the devil…_

Groaning in misery, the brunet dug into his bag blindly. His swollen eyes sealed shut.

Finally getting a grasp on the ringing monstrosity he answered the call.

"Hello papa, how are you and mom?" he says tiredly.

"Haha! We're fine my little tuna fishy~ But I didn't call for you to ask about us. We want to know how you're doing!" his voice had boomed cheerfully, but there a hint of worry in there that was not very common in his father's voice.

"'We'? Is mom there with you?" he inquires.

"Hello there Tsu-kun~" he hears his mother coo at him over the line. His dad must have had the call on loudspeaker.

Huffing in amusement Tsuna forces himself onto his elbows and switches the cell from his left ear to the right.

"Hi mom! And before dad thinks I'm changing the subject… Guys, _I'm fine_."

He hears his father make a disbelieving snort but it's his mother that speaks next.

"But Tsu-kun it's barely been a week since the funeral here in Italy. Are you sure that you're alright? The two of you were so close…"

Tsuna feels his eyes burn behind his eyelids but he'd decided he cried enough for today.

Taking a deep breath he says, "I'm trying to cope… Honestly, sometimes it feels like he's still around. It's creepy as hell but I don't feel so alone." He jokes to his parents.

The line went deathly quiet and Tsuna started to chew his lip in worry.

"Tsunayoshi…" his father says quietly. "Are you sure you don't want to come back to Italy? We know we've been pushing you into being more independent-" At the phrasing, Tsuna cracks open his eyelids and squints in concentration to figure whether or not his father was yanking his chains, "-but we're worried about you. Can't you come back home to us?"

Tsuna would have been sorely tempted to take them up on their offer, but years of being by his pushy best friend's side made him stubborn and impromptu.

The man might have been buried in Palermo, Sicily. But he had been killed here in Japan.

Tsuna wanted to at least spend his time in the country his best friend was murdered in before coming back home. But that was his cowardice talking.

Although he won't move back in with his parents, he couldn't go back to that homely flat he and his best friend had bought and settled down in just yet. He's only here because he can't face that empty house by himself.

He was running away and he damn well knew it.

"Nah, I'll stay here for a while. I won't come back home either, I have a home to go back to when I arrive you know." He says lightly.

Iemitsu huffs and grumbles, "I knew it was a bad idea for the two of you to become friends…"

Tsuna rolls his eyes with a look of contempt. His father never did like that the other had taken a liking to Tsuna. It physically and mentally burned the blond every time he saw them side by side.

The sound of his mother's startled, "Dear!" and slap to the head or what Tsuna _assumed_ was a slap to the head. He really hoped she hit him on the head.

His father's scandalized and whiny, "Honey?!" only added to his satisfaction.

Snorting lightly, Tsuna rolled onto his back and rubbed his blurry eyes. "Well it was nice to hear from you guys but I'm bone tired. I'll call you guys tomorrow before lunch." He stifled a yawn. "Okay?"

His mother gave a fond hum over Iemitsu's whining, "Okay Tsu-kun! Have a good rest. Mama loves you~"

"Love you too… Bye dad…" Tsuna trailed off and hung up before his dad could keep him up longer.

He switched off the lights.

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The brunet woke up ten minutes before his alarm went off and just laid there blinking in confusion.

His poor head was pounding.

When he glanced at the too bright screen of his cellphone he groaned. It was barely four in the morning and here he was, up at an ungodly to finish cleaning his house. Tsuna glanced down at his clothes and huffed. He hadn't taken a bath last night and just fell asleep in his dirty shirt and stained slacks.

Brushing back the long bangs from his face, his deactivated his alarm before it could scream at him and crawled into the shower. After cleaning himself up he groaned once again at his stupidity. He should have just went ahead and cleaned the house first before taking a bath. That way, he didn't have to take _two_ baths.

Donning an overused white shirt and a cycle shorts, the man hustled himself into the kitchen to whip up a quick breakfast before starting his tireless day.

.

.

.

It took a grand total of nine hours before he finally finished cleaning the whole place out while putting everything into place aka dragging his furniture around the manor. The brunet was mighty proud of himself. His slave driver best friend was something else indeed. He outright collapsed on the cold harsh dirt outside of the garage with a satisfied hum.

His stomach rumbled and the brunet then realized that maybe he had missed lunch.

Oh who was he kidding, he knew that he had missed lunch. And not just lunch but his call to his suddenly overprotective and overbearing parents.

Tsuna wandered into his home, dust and grime ridden, with his cleaning supplies and picked up his cell phone from the counter in the kitchen where he'd left it. A trail of sweat ran from his temple to cheek.

 **48** **Missed Calls**

 **76** **Text Messages**

All from his parents.

Tsuna sighed. He wondered not for the first time, why his parents suddenly decided to care. The brunet wouldn't have minded this level of coddling when he was younger but now, when he is already a grown man…?

Dialing his parents' home number he wandered around the kitchen pulling some items out for a late lunch while his mother answered on the first ring.

He spent a solid thirty minutes on the phone talking with his mother before hanging up. Tsuna stared at his half eaten sandwich with a blank look on his face before shoving it into the microwave. He then went into the bathroom to clean himself up.

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Drained of energy and speechless, Tsuna went and crawled into his unmade bed. His warm and moist skin felt great against the silk sheets and he rolled around like a little child. He laughed softly and curled himself onto a pillow to take a short nap.

The dark heaviness lurking within his conscious which had taken a seat on the back burner of his mind just temporarily, surged forward with a burning lunge.

The slumbering brunet never heard the creaking of the wooden floor boards nor did he see the trailing green glow of the eyes that watched him cry out in his sleep.

 **TBC…**


End file.
